Acquisition and Control Tools
This page is a collection of tools we are cataloging as a convenience reference for NWB users. This is not a comprehensive list of NWB tools. Many of these tools are built and supported by other groups, and are in active development. If you would like to contribute a tool, please see the instructions here.
Acquiring Electrophysiology Data
MIES is a sweep based data acquisition tool written in Igor Pro. MIES has three primary user interfaces: 1) the WaveBuilder to generate stimulus sets 2) the DA_Ephys GUI to control and observe data acquisition in real time, and 3) the DataBrowser to browse acquired data. All three interfaces are intended to be operated in parallel. Video tutorial MIES NWB Module Docs Source.
OpenEphys GUI is a modular, open-source software for extracellular electrophysiology. Built by neuroscientists, for neuroscientists, OpenEphys GUI has all the features needed to acquire and visualize electrophysiology data, while making it easy to add new modules written in C++. The GUI allows the user to configure processing pipelines by mixing and matching modules. Using the NWB format plugin, users can record data directly in NWB format via the OpenEphys GUI. — OpenEphys GUI: Docs Website Source — NWB Plugin for OpenEphys: Docs Source
Controlling and Recoding Behavioral Tasks
Visiomode is an open-source platform for building touchscreen-based behavioral tasks for rodents. It leverages the inherent flexibility of touchscreens to offer a simple yet adaptable software and hardware platform. Visiomode is built on the Raspberry Pi computer combining a web-based interface and powerful plug-in system with an operant chamber that can be adapted to generate a wide range of behavioral tasks. Docs Source Publication
ArControl is a Arduino based digital signals control system. A special application for ArControl is to establish a animal behavioral platform (as Skinner box), which control devices to deliver stimulation and monitor behavioral response. ArControl is also useful to generate Optogenetic TTL pulses. While ArControl does currently not support recording data directly in NWB, it provides tools for converting ArControl data to NWB. NWB conversion tool Demo ArControl Source
Brain Data Modeling and Simulation
Brain Modeling Toolkit (BMTK), SONATA, and Visual Neuronal Dynamics (VND) are mutually integrated software tools that are particularly suited to support large-scale bio-realistic brain modeling, but are applicable to a variety of neuronal modeling applications. BMTK is a suite for building and simulating network models at multiple levels of resolution, from biophysically-detailed, to point-neuron, to population-statistics approaches. The modular design of BMTK allows users to easily work across different scales of resolution and different simulation engines using the same code interface. The model architecture and parameters, as well as simulation configuration, input, and output are stored together in the SONATA data format. Models and their output activity can then be visualized with the powerful rendering capabilities of VND. Docs Tutorial NWB Spike Stimulus Source
Note
Disclaimer: Reference herein to any specific product, process, or service by its trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, does not constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the NWB development team, United States Government or any agency thereof, or The Regents of the University of California. Use of the NeurodataWithoutBorders name for endorsements is prohibited.